


A Halo in Reverse

by deliciousshame



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fate/Grand Order fusion, Angst, M/M, Parallel Universes, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-03 17:42:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14001243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deliciousshame/pseuds/deliciousshame
Summary: Trying to save humanity wasn't enough trouble, oh no, he just had to summon that strangely attractive archer.The Fate/Grand Order (NA) fusion that no one asked for and that probably doesn't make sense without some knowledge of the game.





	A Halo in Reverse

“Senpai! Please stay focused! The enemy is counterattacking.”

Tetsuya snaps back into focus. Mash’s right; he can’t allow himself this kind of distraction. No matter how ridiculous it sounds, the fate of the world really does rest on Chaldea’s residents’ shoulders, and he is its only remaining Master.

He just can’t help being distracted by Aomine’s profile. There’s just something compelling about him lately. Like he’s someone he knew a long time ago, maybe. 

But he’s sure they’ve never met before Chaldea. He could never forget someone like this Servant.

___________________

He fends off Mash’s well-meaning concerns to hide in his room, blissfully empty of servants or random personnel for once. Another Grail recovered, another Demon God defeated. He’ll be able to rest until they find the next anomaly. 

Or he would if he wasn’t always waking up in the middle of the night, his heart beating too fast and his mind clear of any memories.

_I don't even remember how to receive your passes anymore._

___________________

Tetsuya is always torn between excitement and dread when he tries summoning a new heroic spirit. The whole system hasn’t lost its shine yet, and neither has meeting said heroic spirits. They’re always a handful, but there's so much to learn from them. No one has touched history like a heroic spirit. 

He remembers the blue light, the mana in the air fluctuating, announcing the arrival of a new Servant. He’s just hoping he’s less trouble than his latest attempts at getting a new partner. Between Gilgamesh and Akashi, he’s got too much ego to handle. 

The shape solidifies, revealing a dark, tall man. Tetsuya is thinking he’s failed and has summoned EMIYA again, but the hair seems to be black, not white. 

“Hey, are you my new Master? My name’s Aomine Daiki. Hope we’ll get along.”

Tetsuya shakes his hand and moves on. He has no idea who Aomine Daiki is, but then again, he’s not the only heroic spirit he doesn’t know. He tries to maintain a good relationship with all of them, but he can’t afford to pick favorites. 

___________________

Except he ends up doing it anyway. He finds himself taking this new addition to battle a little bit more often than his other archers. He doesn’t think much of it at first, but at some point Mash comments on it and he’s obliged to admit to himself that yes, she’s right.

Aomine is just… effective. Yes, effective. And friendly. Most of his archers are jerks. Aomine is… just a little bit less bad, to be honest. Well, he usually is nice to Tetsuya himself. It just doesn’t extend to everyone else. They’re not close or anything. Aomine doesn’t open up much to him. But they naturally get along well enough, and that’s already a good start. 

Plus, well, he’s not hard to look at. Not that that’s a rarity when you surround yourself with heroes, but still, it’s worthy of note.

___________________

Once, he got a visit from Altera in his dream, fighting enemies they didn’t see the same way, talking to her about her world, as foreign to him as Chaldea must seem to her.

___________________

_The only one who can defeat me is me._

He tries to hold onto the fragments of sentences he swears were so vivid moments ago, but they fly like they never existed. Like they never happened.

Not to him anyway.

___________________

“Happy birthday.”

Tetsuya turns toward Aomine with a question on his face, but Kiyohime tries to bury him under her glee at finding out this new information about him, and he loses his chance at asking him how he found out.

___________________

There was that accident with (a female) Oda Nobunaga. 

He talks to Jeanne about Siegfried, to EMIYA about Artoria, to Francis about Nero.

He thinks about the alternate versions of Jeanne and Artoria.

He starts wondering.

___________________

He can tell from the moment he starts taking in his surroundings. By now, it has happened frequently enough for him to recognise what is happening. He got pulled into some Servant’s dream, or he pulled them in in his, or this is somewhere in-between, but this is a Servant’s memory taking form. 

But instead of one of the battlefields where the heroic spirit made his name, he gets… an empty gymnasium? What?

A second look reveals it’s not actually empty. There’s a child trying to play basket… No, not a child… Well, it is a child, but it’s… himself… 

He’s never had time for sports. As the heir of his family, his first and foremost priority had always been magecraft. 

It must be as he suspected. Like many Servants, Aomine Daiki is from an alternate timeline, or a parallel universe. Somewhere where they used to know each other. Their growing bond, normal between a Servant and a Master, must have triggered the dreams he can’t seem to remember. 

The child version of himself is quickly joined by a child version of Aomine, and that confirms it.

“So, nothing of that rings a bell to you.”

The main character has finally appeared, looking at the two with a look Tetsuya could not even begin to describe. “I’m afraid not.”

Aomine sighs. “I guessed as much. At first, I thought maybe we had a falling out here or something, but you obviously didn’t know Akashi or the others either, so I figured it wasn’t personal.”

He really makes for a terrible basketball player. He wonders what Aomine, whom even a neophyte can tell is incredibly talented, saw in him. “Were we close? In your world, I mean.”

Aomine laughs. It’s bitter. “Who the fuck knows at this point. After everything went to hell, so did Tetsu and I, I guess. He wasn’t a magus. Maybe things would have turned out better if you had been the one there.”

Conflict makes heroes out of common men. Obviously that’s what happened to Aomine. But whatever the specifics were, there’s one thing Tetsuya is certain of. “I can’t be him for you. I’m sorry.”

From the way Aomine flinches, he must not have been aware of the wild look that had passed over his face. His eyes had been roaming over Tetsuya like over a long-lost lover, or a family member you thought was dead, or the missing other half of your soul. Aomine is nice enough, and Tetsuya is attracted to him, he can admit this to himself, but this way madness lies. Let’s just say he has no interest in meeting a berserker version of Aomine.

Aomine gets himself together. “I know. You’re my Master, nothing more, nothing less.”

That’s a bit cold, but that’s how it should be between Masters and Servants. “Indeed.”

They both look at the children leaving the gymnasium, before the scene melts into a rainy river bank, where they both look too wrecked for their young age. Dear god, were they ever that young? It seems impossible.

“Enough!”

The dream crumbles around them. Tetsuya wakes up in his room in Chaldea, his memories clear for once.

This won’t do. Usually, when this happens, there are enemies to defeat or obstacles to overcome. There, nothing really happened. They shouldn’t have been able to escape this way. 

Maybe Aomine has special abilities linked to dreams. Maybe another Servant pulled them out. Maybe the dream will come back and refuse to be destroyed next time. 

There’s nothing he can do about it. Something will happen or nothing will. 

Until then, all he has to do is live with the memories of Aomine looking right through him, seeing someone who was never there.

___________________

Tetsuya tries to put it out of his mind. He really does. They’re all at the centre of something so much more important. Plus, it’s not like his other Servants don’t have baggage too. And it’s not like he doesn’t believe in what he said. There has to be some level of separation between Master and Servant, especially for him, who has more than he can count. The last thing he needs is jealousy festering between his helpers. 

But.

___________________

_You don't need to pass at me anymore._

___________________

Dr. Roman finds another anomaly, and that occupies everyone for quite a while. Tetsuya navigates the foggy streets of London without resorting to asking for Aomine’s help. Really, he wouldn’t get along with Mordred. 

But once it’s over with, he comes back home to Chaldea and spots Aomine staring at him for a few seconds before he disappears in the hall, and he starts feeling self-conscious all over again.

He has to do something.

___________________

He almost calls out to Akashi when he spots him, but abstains when he notices the golden stare. Saber Akashi is much easier to deal with than his caster counterpart. 

There’s always “the others”. Tetsuya was a bit confused about that, but once he starts thinking about Japanese heroic spirits he hadn’t heard of before, the possibilities start to slim down. But, well, he doesn’t really want to have that kind of serious conversation with Kise or, god forbid, Murasakibara. Midorima might cooperate if Tetsuya found him in an agreeable mood, but Akashi would probably be best.

He finally decides to summon him after a couple hours of fruitless searches in the meanders of Chaldea. 

Akashi appears in a flash, his sword sheathed for once. “Hello, Master. Is there something you need from me today?”

“I just wanted to ask you a question, if it doesn’t bother you.”

“Ask away.”

“Do we know each other? Or rather, did a version of me met a version of you in the past?”

Akashi grins. Even if it’s not the caster version of him, he’s still a bit disturbing. “So, you finally noticed. Well, Kuroko could be very obtuse when he wanted to be, so I suppose you two have that in common.”

Tetsuya decided not to take offense. Anyway, it’s said with fondness. Akashi and he must have been somewhat close. “It doesn’t disturb you?”

Akashi doesn’t even twitch. “No. You wouldn’t understand, but we Servants have a different perspective on these things.”

“Aomine doesn’t seem to.”

At that, Akashi’s expression clears. “Ah, I see. Well, Aomine is a different matter altogether. Has he done something to make you… uncomfortable?” 

Tetsuya doesn’t feel like getting into the details with Akashi. “Oh, no. I’ve just been having these dreams I’m guessing are echoes of your reality? By chance, were we playing basketball together?”

Akashi smiles. “We used to, before the calamity. Kuroko was quite good, in his own way.” He sighs. “After that, well, there wasn’t much playing possible.”

Now, Tetsuya can hear the bitterness in Akashi’s voice. Tetsuya can understand. In this world too, humanity has been victim to a catastrophe without compare. Now that he is a heroic spirit, there is nothing he can do for his original world. Maybe he thinks this is his best chance at a better future. 

When thinking about that, it seems ridiculous to worry about whatever personal problems that could have existed between Aomine and the version of himself he was… close to. “I see.”

“Master, do you want me to talk to him?”

Tetsuya blinks. “Who?”

He can tell Akashi is not impressed, but nothing transpires on his face. “Aomine.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Then, what did you want from me?”

When put on the spot like this, not asking seems like a waste. Still, he can tell he’s blushing. He shouldn’t be showing that kind of weakness in front of the Servants. He tries to compose himself. “I had the feeling that Aomine and I were… close. Would you mind telling me how much? I don’t want to make things harder between us by asking him outright.”

Akashi is now amused. “The relationship between Aomine and Kuroko. That’s all you’re asking about.” He lets out a little laugh. “Well, they were good friends for years, then they weren’t, then they were more. After that, well, the catastrophe happened, and let’s just say it didn’t help. More than that, I would rather not talk about. It does not involve you, after all.” 

It sounds like a rebuke, but Tetsuya sees from the slight widening of Akashi’s eyes that this is more of a realisation. “Of course. Thank you for your help. You can go if you wish.”

Akashi bows slightly and disappears. 

So. They were friends. They played basketball. They were lovers. And it was complicated.

Good to know, but it doesn’t help. 

___________________

_"A shadow only exists because of light. No matter how much you try, it's not the other way around. You can't beat me."_

___________________

He finds himself back on that rainy river bank, with those younger versions of himself and Aomine standing stock-still, looking destroyed. He can’t hear what they’re saying. He doesn’t want to get closer. He didn’t think they noticed him the last time, but since those dreams are interactive when other Servants are the cause, he can’t be too careful. 

Still, should he wait for Aomine’s arrival or just try to get a better grasp on what exactly happened between them?

Well, it’s not like he could learn much. The area surrounding the river fades in the darkness, leaving only its two protagonists as the clear focus.

He knows he can stop wondering when Aomine, the Servant version, stalks out of said darkness. 

“This again” is what he says. The tone indicates boredom, but the look on his face betrays otherwise. 

The two crying children are replaced with a burning, destroyed city. At first, Tetsuya thinks they’re in Fuyuki, but no, this isn’t it. He sees himself, this version of Kuroko Tetsuya must be close to his age, cradling the body of a tall, red-haired man. Aomine is screaming at him, probably trying to get him to take shelter and leave the man behind, but he refuses. In any other context, the way this Tetsuya does all he can to take the too-big body with him might be funny. Right now, the blood dripping on them both and the way his limp arms droop remove all humor from the situation. 

“That’s Kagami. You know him?”

Tetsuya shrugs. “No.” 

He’s not imagining the flash of satisfaction of Aomine’s face, there and gone in a second. 

“Was he the cause of the tension between you and the other Kuroko Tetsuya?”

For a second, Tetsuya thinks Aomine will hit him. “Why are you even asking?! This doesn’t mean anything to you!”

“It does to you. I suppose we have to solve this, or we’ll keep finding ourselves in each other’s dreams.”

“I never saw yours.”

Good. “That doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen.”

Aomine doesn’t look at him while he answers. His eyes are glued on the past, watching himself force his Tetsuya to leave behind Kagami’s body in the crumbling remains of the city. “Fine, whatever. Yes. No. It wasn’t the main reason. Nothing was the main reason. The world was ending! I wanted to be with you until the end. You wanted to keep me away and focus on doing everything you could to try to save the world, which, heh, you two have in common. I knew that was pointless. You wouldn’t accept the truth. We fought. You left. You died. The world went to hell twice as hard. We decided we had to try, for your sake. We didn’t think we could really do something, not really, but we tried, and well, we tried hard enough to become heroic spirits, so there’s that.”

Tetsuya can guess who “we” refers to. “Is there any chance of me summoning him?” That would be… incredibly disturbing. 

“Nah. He died before he managed to do anything.” 

From the speed of the answer, Tetsuya guesses Aomine has wondered the same thing himself probably more than once. 

If he found the idea unnerving, he can’t begin to imagine Aomine’s feelings on the subject. 

“What does that have to do with childhood traumas and basketball?”

Aomine shrugs. “No idea. That part of my life… was pretty shitty, but we got over it.”

“Tell me about it.”

As if the memories were following their conversation, the scene is replaced with… his funeral. He can smell the incense and see his picture on the altar, but he still can’t quite hear the lamentations in the scarcely populated room. 

Aomine ignores the change and starts talking, echoing the version of himself standing by the altar. 

…

It’s too much. There’s too much history there, too much baggage from when he was too young. Tetsuya never had this kind of deep friendship, this sort of meaningful relationship. He’d expected that at some point he’d marry a suitable woman from another magus family to produce a suitable heir to whom he’d teach everything, just like his mother did. Maybe he’d meet her when he finally left to study at Clock Tower. This, this attachment that obviously shaped them both in Aomine’s reality, is so foreign to him it might as well be alien. He has no idea how to deal with it. This is more than sex, more than a passing fancy. 

Not that he hadn’t guessed as much before, but now he knows and he can’t conceive the version of himself Aomine describes. This isn’t him. This couldn’t be him. 

And yet. 

Aomine is staring at him expectantly, and Tetsuya cannot come up with a single pertinent thing to say to him in response. His mind is as white as the chrysanthemums someone put on the altar of his funeral. Full of people he has never seen.

He’s a mess. “I see.”

As expected, this does not satisfy him. “…Are you serious right now?”

“I don’t know what else to say.”

“You have no idea how much I want to punch you.”

“You can, if you want to. It’s just a dream.” Tetsuya would welcome some pain to clear his mind right now.

“Just shut up. If you’re even a little bit right about it all, we should be out of there soon.”

Sure enough, it seems that only a few seconds have passed when Tetsuya opens his eyes to the boring ceiling of his room in Chaldea. 

…

What to do now. 

___________________

Obviously, their enemy does not have the decency to interrupt them now that he would welcome it. The rest of the world stays blissfully unperturbed by random events or new time anomalies. He has nothing but time on his hands, and if he tries to train more Mash will pester him. 

He only has himself to blame. He hasn’t seen Aomine walk the corridors of Chaldea even once since then. Tetsuya suspects he’s avoiding him, and he’s grateful for it. It’s much better than crossing Akashi’s golden/red haze and try to wonder what goes on behind it. Does he know? Did Aomine talk about him to his comrades from his original world? How is it for them, who also knew him? 

This again. His mind can’t stop going back to Aomine, and yet he can’t find a satisfying answer to this conundrum. 

If he dared, he would ask help of his Servants. Heroes and tragic romances go hand in hand after all. Surely they have had to deal with their own share of troubles. Then again, they might not remember, or care anymore. It’s his experience that Servants often seem to consider their previous lives as completely different from their current existence as Servants.

Also, this way madness lies. Talking about anything close to his love life with his Servants would result in a revolt at best, a massacre at worst. Plus, it would make Mash sad. Tetsuya already makes her life hard enough. 

He’d just like to know what he’s supposed to do. He never enjoys finding out that his Servants hurt, but as a Master he has to accept he can’t soothe all their wounds, and neither should he. Their relationship is fundamentally transient. Getting himself caught wouldn’t do any good. 

He sighs. He can tell himself all the soothing lies he wants to, the facts are that if he had managed to stay away like a good Master should, there would be no connection between them and he wouldn’t have gotten those untimely flashbacks or disturbing dreams. And since he already failed at that step, regretting it now is useless. 

He’s been racking his brain trying to make the whole mess better, and the only idea he has is objectively terrible. He doesn’t know if he could handle it. It could make everything so much worse.

But it’s the only idea he has. He must try it.

___________________

Tetsuya hasn’t brought a lot of mementos to Chaldea. He has a few books his mother gave him. His first ceremonial dagger. An old journal he started keeping back when he was learning how to write, back when magecraft wasn’t as big a part of his life as it is now. 

That book is the only thing he thinks might be of use. He hopes it won’t be destroyed in the process. He’s not actually all that familiar with the more traditional summoning style, the one involving a catalyst. He hopes he won’t fumble it. His catalyst didn’t exactly belong to the spirit he’s trying to summon, but since he’s not from this world, he can’t do better than this. 

He just hopes the summoning will take. Aomine said it probably wouldn’t, but Tetsuya remembers the funeral. All the people surrounded around him. How all those heroes used his death as a focus. 

Heroes transcend after their death, from the story told about them.

Please let it be enough.

___________________

It’s not. All he gets is a wraith, but a pale echo of what Aomine’s Tetsuya must have been. A spirit shrouded in shadows, close, but not close enough, to becoming a hero. 

He’s not a Servant. Tetsuya can’t give him a physical form able to interact with the world. 

He can’t, but he can allow him the use of his own body for a little while. He’d have preferred not to, he doesn’t want to be possessed by himself, but he knew it was a distinct possibility and thus made the requisite preparations. 

Losing control of all his movement isn’t something to enjoy, but this way he can communicate what he wants to Aomine’s Tetsuya with ease. This isn’t fun either, a stranger too similar to him and yet so different rummaging through his memories, but he manages to push it all at him. Their different past, his complete befuddlement at it all, Aomine’s lingering pain. 

Sure enough, he can hear his, their voice, starting the summoning chant to call Aomine, who appears a few seconds later. He’s obviously unhappy about it, and wary of what is happening.

“Aomine-kun.”

Aomine freezes on the spot. 

Then he gets angry. “Who the fuck told you calling me this would be a good idea. I’m going to send them right back to the Throne.”

“None of the Miracles would play that kind of mean-spirited trick on you, Aomine-kun. It’s me. Your master was worried about you, so he called me to help you out. How do you manage to keep giving me trouble even after my death, really.”

He thinks if this goes on, Aomine will shatter right in front of him. “…Tetsu?”

“Yes.”

As the strange kind of outside observer he is, he sees the full-on embrace coming before it happens, but he’s still perturbed by it. Even if this is familiar to Aomine and his Tetsuya, it isn’t for him. Tetsuya doesn’t know the strength of Aomine’s arms, the heat of his body, the pull of his fingers tangling in his clothes and hair. He’s never heard his name spoken like this, with reverence and fear and astonishment and so, so much love. Surely the other Tetsuya is bursting into pieces too. How could he react any other way? 

And yet, he stands firm, firmer than Tetsuya would in his place. When their arms return the embrace, it’s with steady determination. When he whispers Aomine’s name, it sounds soothing, if not any less loving. 

Aomine shuts him up with his own lips. This too isn’t unexpected, but Tetsuya still hopes they won’t use his body for much more than that. At the end of the day, Aomine is still his Servant. This will be hard enough to deal with already. He has to remember nothing about this is meant for him. He’s but a vessel in this. 

Maybe this is why Tetsuya frees himself so quickly. Aomine protests, but Tetsuya puts a finger on his lips and he shushes right out. “We don’t have much time.”

This, of course, does nothing to calm Aomine. “You’re leaving me _again_?”

“You know I can’t stay. This isn’t my place.”

“ _Then why are you even here? What’s the point?_ ”

“He tried to summon me, you know. Despite how disturbing it would have been for him, he tried. It’s not his fault I’m not a heroic spirit. Can’t this be enough?”

Aomine doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to. Of course it isn’t enough. How could it be. 

“There are so many things I could say, but I really want to apologise. I’m sorry. If I knew how things would turn out, I would have never left you to deal with it all by yourself. Though I suppose everyone would make different choices if they knew the future.”

Aomine starts talking, but his Tetsuya shuts him up again. “I’m not done. Aomine-kun, I want you to know that I understand. Just because I wouldn’t have made the choices you did doesn’t mean I can’t accept them. I forgive you.”

Another attempt by Aomine to talk to him, another interruption.

“Listen to me. I forgive you. For everything. Just let go. You have a new cause to focus on.”

They’re both crying silently now, clinging to each other. Tetsuya wishes he could be anywhere but here.

“Tetsu… Fuck, I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. I’m your shadow, right? I know everything.”

Aomine goes for another kiss. It’s still desperate. 

There’s nothing he can do about it. In fact…

“You should go.”

Aomine pushes back, stunned. “What?”

“You need to go. The spell isn’t going to hold for much longer, and I suppose you’d rather not be confronted to your Master when he gets back in control.”

Indeed. Tetsuya sends gratitude toward the other him. 

“…Okay. Fuck, okay. I… I love you. Goodbye.”

“I love you too. Win this fight for me. Don’t let this world turn into ours.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

One last kiss and Aomine leaves. He looks like it’s killing him, but he goes. 

Tetsuya cannot talk with words to the spirit that is possessing him, but he can feel what the other allows him to feel. So he’s once again confronted with feelings he doesn’t know, all this love and despair for Aomine buried in this fathomless sense of fatality, then gratitude, envy and jealousy toward him. Understandable, really. 

Tetsuya could have allowed the possession to stand for a little longer. Instead, he pushes the spirit out, and ends the spell. The spirit disperses. He’s left alone in the workroom.

This is hard. This is not pleasant. He didn’t want any of this, not like this. 

Still, in the end, he hopes he did the right thing.

___________________

He rather thinks Aomine will spend some time avoiding him. He wouldn’t blame him. It didn’t even concern Tetsuya and yet _he’s_ been having trouble dealing with it. 

He’s wrong. Aomine comes knocking on his door a few days later. Tetsuya opens and stares. 

And stares.

“Are you going to let me in or what?”

Tetsuya shakes himself back into awareness. “Of course.” He pushes himself out of the doorway. 

Aomine walks right in, slamming the door close with a bit more force than necessary. Trapping them in there, maybe. Or at least it feels like it. 

Tetsuya starts talking when it becomes evident that Aomine won’t. “Can I help you with something?”

Aomine snorts. “You already did, didn’t you.”

Tetsuya shrugs. He doesn’t know what else to do.

“Why did you even bother? I don’t get it.”

Tetsuya remembers the dreams. How wild Aomine was. How much hurt he seemed to be carrying. How he can’t help but feel like he’s the cause of it, how every look at him must be like a stab wound. “Maybe the other me would have been a useful Servant.”

“Yeah, right. You literally asked if I thought he could turn up as a Servant and I said no, and you went with it anyway because who cares what I say, right?”

When he says it like that. “I just wanted to help.”

Aomine sighs. “I know. What I don’t know is why you bothered.”

“You were in pain.”

“I’m just another Servant to you.”

“I helped out other Servants before.”

“Not like this, and you know it. You wouldn’t let yourself be possessed for Gilgamesh or Elizabeth.”

Tetsuya shudders at the idea. “It was by myself, sort of. It’s not the same. I probably can trust myself not to abuse… myself…” Now this is weird.

“Yeah, you left that up to me.”

Damn him, he just had to bring that up. Tetsuya had been trying so hard to ignore he’d kissed those lips.

“Stop blushing, you look just like he did when I was teasing him and it’s messing with me.”

Tetsuya struggles through his embarrassment to answer. “I’ll stop blushing if we stop talking about this.”

“Too fucking bad for you then cause we’re talking about this. You basically set yourself up for this to happen anyway, so deal with it.”

Well, he’s right. He did. He really didn’t think this through. In his head: yes, there might be some kissing, maybe some heavy petting, but Aomine is attractive. He can deal with that. Hopefully it will help Aomine get over his trauma and they can put those strange dreams behind them. 

Reality: he now knows intimately how it feels to be loved by Aomine and it’s troubling him. Tetsuya cannot afford distraction. He’s trying to save the world here. Plus, he has no idea how Aomine took it. 

“Fine. I did know this was a possibility. I accepted it, so it’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“That’s not what I… I’m not going to finish that sentence, it’d make me sound like an asshole.”

From what Tetsuya can guess, yes, yes it would.

“You let himself be possessed by my… by Tetsu. How I am supposed to look at you and not remember him now?”

“Could you before?” 

Silence follows. Tetsuya gives himself a point.

Finally, so low he almost doesn’t hear it. “It’s worse now.”

“I could free you.”

Aomine raises his head. “What.”

“I could release you from your contract. You’d go back to the Throne. No more me. I have plenty of Servants. I don’t need you.”

Before he knows it, he finds himself plastered to the wall, Aomine holding his wrists over his head. Aomine’s eyes are savage. “Don’t say that.”

Tetsuya curses under his breath. Apparently his summoning wasn’t enough to placate him if a few words trigger this response. “I’m not him. Aomine, I’m not.”

The lack of honorifics has the desired effects. Aomine calms down a little.

Just a little. “Please let me go.” Aomine’s hands are so big around its wrists.

“Tetsu would have done the same thing, you know.”

“…What.”

“Trying to save the world against all odds. Sacrificing himself to help someone else.”

That wasn’t much of a sacrifice, really. How can it not cross his mind that they might also have similar preferences. “We are different versions of the same person, so that isn’t strange, but we’re not the same. I’m not him.”

One of Aomine’s hands starts trailing down his arm, and Tetsuya becomes abruptly aware that he’s still being pressed against the wall by Aomine’s towering body. 

How can someone, even a heroic spirit, generates so much warmth? 

From this close, Aomine’s voice reverberates through Tetsuya. “You might as well be. You’re the same in all the ways that matter. Well, except you don’t play basketball.”

“I could learn.”

The moments the words escape his lips, Tetsuya is appalled. Here they are, and he’s suggesting they play basketball? What was he even thinking? Is he an idiot? He doesn’t have the time for basketball!

“You could! I could get the team together, and I’d get Akashi to create a reality marble with a court in it! It’d be great! I bet you’d be as good as Tetsu in no time! Not that that’d be hard!”

Oh god, he unleashed a monster.

Good distraction though. “Please don’t make Akashi waste his time on a basketball reality marble.” He tugs on his wrists, but no, Aomine is still holding on tight. Tetsuya starts thinking of minor spells he could use to surprise him into letting go.

Sadly, his pulling has attracted Aomine’s attention again. Tetsuya feels the weight of all of it like a third hand wandering on his skin. “I wonder if you have other common points with Tetsu.”

Divert, divert. “I suppose we have many. Maybe we can talk about it another time, after you let me go?”

“Or we could find out now.”

Too fast for Tetsuya to react, Aomine lowers himself and starts worrying at a spot just under his ear that has Tetsuya gasps and clings to Aomine’s shirt in reflex. 

He had no idea he had this weak spot. Shocked, he raises his eyes to meet Aomine’s blown pupils and he doesn’t think. He just reacts. “Get out. Now!”

With all the power of a command spell, Aomine can only blink before he disappears, unable to fight the compulsion.

Tetsuya’s knees give a few seconds later. He slowly crumbles to the floor of his room. 

Damn it all. 

___________________

He can’t believe he’s resorting to avoiding his own Servant, and yet, here he is. He stops going to the common areas of Chaldea as much as possible. If he can’t, he sticks to Mash’s side. If not, he hangs around his lancers. Hopefully it will be enough to keep his annoying archer away. 

He has to find a better solution. This whole dance of meeting-catastrophe-avoidance has to stop, for good. Tetsuya has to set Aomine straight. He’ll use another command spell if he has to. He’d probably be the only Master in history to use one to order their Servant not to hit on them. Maybe he could make it a mass order to all his Servants. That’d be nice. He doesn’t think it’s possible, but it would sure be useful.

Anyway. Enough is enough. He’s going to set his Servant straight and that’ll be that. End of story. 

He’ll still summon Aomine in another room. He just feels like the absence of a bed nearby might help. 

The spike of mana preceding the appearance of a Servant shouldn’t concur with dread pooling at the bottom of his stomach. Or maybe it’s something else.

Aomine’s shifting eyes betray Tetsuya might not be the only one feeling awkward. 

Good.

“Hey.”

“Hello, Aomine.” Tetsuya just stares him down with his best neutral expression, which is pretty impressive if he says so himself. 

“You want something?”

…Maybe not the best opening. “I just wanted to clear the air between us and put it all behind.”

“No need. You made yourself pretty clear already.”

Is he angry at him? Tetsuya takes a deep breath before answering. “Then we’re in agreement. No more putting your hands on me.”

“No we’re not, but I’m not going to force you. I don’t get why you won’t even give me a chance, is all.”

Tetsuya gives him a slightly disbelieving look. “Surely you’re kidding. You’re not a spirit of older times. You must be familiar with the idea of unhealthy relationships. Trying to replace your dead lover with their identical counterpart is the definition of that.”

Aomine outright laughs at him. The nerve. “Like I have time to waste on that. I’m a dead heroic spirit from a destroyed world. You’re one of the very few surviving humans trying to save the world despite the fact that it’s probably pointless. What do you even have to lose? I already lost Tetsu once, it’s not like this could be worse than being without him.”

That’s terrible logic. Tetsuya can only stare. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

Bitter, bitter laugh. “Been there, done that.”

Well. Tetsuya guesses that’s true. “That doesn’t make it a good idea.”

“Nothing about our lives is a good idea. We’re still living them anyway. Might as well make them as nice as they can be, and for me that means being with Tetsu, in any way I can be. Who gets a second chance like this and wastes it? Not me, that’s all. Plus, I’m not blind. It’s not like you’re not attracted to me.” As if he needed to prove his point, one of his hands reaches out to brush that spot he’s teased before, and the simple touch elicits a shudder and a flashback: soft lips warming up his skin, leaving a small mark that took days to fade. “Come on, be honest. Tell me you don’t want me. Not that we shouldn’t, not that it’s not a good idea, not that you’d be an irresponsible Master. Tell me your truth, and I’ll accept it.”

Tetsuya opens his mouth, but no sounds escape it. 

He just… knows too much. He remembers the dreams. He remembers all of Aomine’s jagged edges, always on the verge of breaking apart when he so much as thinks of his old lover. He remembers how the other Tetsuya felt during those few moments he allowed them. 

Even if it wasn’t meant for him, he still can’t forget Aomine kissing him, his hands holding on to his body like if he kept grounding him he could keep what was his there indefinitely. There’s even a perverse part of him that wonders how it would be, to be with someone who already knows all of your weaknesses better than you know yourself. 

He can’t think of anyone that wouldn’t want a chance at a relationship like this. Even if heartbreak, one way or the other, is inevitable. Either he wins, and Aomine fades out like all his other Servants once their use has passed, or he loses and they all die. 

It’s so much easier to use common sense to wipe all of that away. Tetsuya has duties to his family, to other magi, to the rest of the world. He can’t forget it all because someone is trying to seduce him. 

But Aomine is right. It would be lying. 

In this end, he can’t answer him. “Can’t you just accept I would rather abstain?”

Aomine grins at him. “Nope. Also, that word choice.”

Tetsuya rolls his eyes before he thinks about it. This, this natural chemistry like they’ve been together since birth, isn’t helping either. 

“Look, just let me kiss you once. Just once.” One of those huge, warm hands settles on his cheek. Their eyes meet; their gazes lock. “Please.”

This look again, full of longing, stealing his breath away. No one has ever _craved_ him before. 

He nods. 

It feels just as loving as it did the first time. It’s overpowering, warm, passionate, terrifying, disturbing, terrible, _perfect_. The hand still resting on his face is trembling, or maybe he’s the one shaking like a leaf in the wind. He wants him to stop. He wants it to continue always. 

Aomine pulls back, leaving Tetsuya dazed for a few moments. He didn’t expect him to stop after one kiss, not really. Maybe it shows on his face. “I said I wasn’t gonna force you, didn’t I?”

He did. Maybe he shouldn’t doubt him next time. 

“So?”

So? So what? 

Oh. 

Right. He has to answer him now. Right. “I…” His mind draws a complete blank. All he can focus on is the look in Aomine’s eyes, resolution battling with hope. Can he really crush that faint hope? Any heroic spirit would deserve better than this. And let’s not forget he wants this too. He does, damn them both.

“I reserve the right to end our contract if this fails. You must be aware that I already shouldn’t allow myself this much distraction.” He really needs to work on saving humanity, after all.

“Like I would give you any reason to. I’m not losing you again.”

Under Aomine’s gaze, Tetsuya can feel chills travelling down his spine.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: while souls of the people that are close to becoming heroic spirits do become wraiths, it can also happen to a genuine heroic spirit if there was a problem with the summoning ritual. Enjoy!


End file.
